The Sentient Surveillance Camera

Surveillance cameras of one sort or another get pointed at us every day. You probably pass through their gaze on your way to work, on public streets and transit, and inside stores and businesses. In New York City, there are thousands—no one is sure exactly how many, but the ACLU counted 4,400 in just two downtown areas and Harlem alone. In London, there are over half a million; the average Londoner is famously captured on CCTV hundreds of times a day. There are estimated to be 20 million to 30 million surveillance cameras in China. So we know our images are being captured, over and over—when the cameras aren’t broken, anyway—and we know that they’re being recorded and stored somewhere. Beyond that, what do we know about what the cameras…